Impossible today, but do not violate the known laws of physics. Might be possible this century or the next: force fields, invisibility, phasers and death stars, teleportation, telepathy, psychokinesis, robots, UFOs and aliens, starships, antimatter and anti-universes

Type 2 impossibilities

Technologies that sit at the edge of our understanding of the physical world. May be realised millenia or millions of years in the future: faster-than-light travel, time travel, parallel universes

Type 3 impossibilties

Technologies that violate the known laws of physics. If they turn out to be possible, they would represent a fundamental shift in our understanding of physics: perpetual motion machines, precognition

Death stars? Has any scientist ever thought of building one of those? And if so, will they think to cover that damned thermal exhaust port?

I for one am waiting for what will happen May, 2008; possibly (as in 'possibility not equalling zero') a Type 3 impossibility (to chime in with Mr Kaku) will occur and solve the mistery of the Drake equation not yielding any results with regards to SETI.

Then again, both the Drake equation and Kaku's concepts are.. bababooie.Well, as long as CBS and NBC are willing to pay for bababooie.. :smirks:

I am on my last cigarette, so I won't argue with that, since I am aware of religion/spirituality both being still very alive these days.

EDIT: fuck it, I still can be arsed to do something I dearly hate.

The remark about the Drake equation was referring to certain issues of the Ultimate Marvel universe and I thought that it would add a nice twist (and a snicker here and there) to refer to them; obviously that turned to shit so I may as well speak my mind on the whole Kaku- matter:I read some of his books (especially the ones 'talking' about super-string- theory) in school and whatever he does or says these days still has this stigma of having been a must-read during my school-years: blunt, bragging about understanding shit he doesn't and un-scientific.

Yes, I hate him. I really hate him. I want a pack of cigarettes right now.I hate that man. And I hate it that people actually do listen to what he says, ignoring the fact that his publications are purely popular science.

There, I have feelings. I hate Michio Kaku. He annoys me. He breathes my air. He soils my gene-pool.And now I will smoke my last cigarette since I don't have any friends who will bring me cigarettes when I need them.

The Drake equation is useful only in that it makes the point fairly clearly that its answer is 'probably more than one'.

However, the 'communicative' part of it, which pretty much refers to radio signals is fucked by the fact that advanced civilizations will probably only use radio waves that can escape into space for communication for a very limited amount of time before transferring to light and cable based systems such as fibre optics.

Excellent. Thanks for letting me know. I work in a chain bookstore and had no idea he had a new book coming out. I love how he can simplify complex concepts into small words my idiot mind can comprehend.

Why in this forsaken age of knowing when some starlet isn't wearing underwear can't they pause for a second and advertise a book? (rhetorical) :P

Not arbitrary at all -- precognition violates vastly more physical laws than the other two.

Point. I suppose my issue was more with the categorisation of telepathy and telekinesis into the "do[es] not violate the known laws of physics" category.

I also find the listing of UFOs and aliens very, very weird. Everything else in category one is stuff that may become possible this century, he claims, through human technological development. And, well, how exactly are they "impossible now"? I mean, as written, it sounds like he thinks the genesis of alien life is this century... Make much more sense if it was listed as "contact with aliens" or something.